Articles Tagged Best Practices

Having trouble figuring how to use your effects during mixing? Here’e a set of rules that can help you choose the best effects for each track more efficiently, courtesy of The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook. Rule 1: As A General Rule Of Thumb, Try To Picture The Performer In An Acoustic Space And Then Realistically Recreate That Space Around Them. This method usually saves some time over simply experimenting with different effects presets until something excites you (although that method can…
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Knowing the audio path through a mixing console is absolutely critical to sound tech/engineer success. Using this information, an engineer can quickly troubleshoot the likely causes of common problems, and can even narrow down the possibilities of unexpected major problems. It can also prevent mistakes because you know what the audio is doing at each stage of the console, and it instills confidence as you sit behind the console, fulling knowing the the ins and outs (sorry for the pun)…
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This article is provided by Audio Geek Zine. Acoustic guitars are one of the most dynamic and expressive instruments used in modern music. They have a broad frequency range covering almost the entire audible spectrum. The instrument can serve many different roles in an arrangement as a harmonic, melodic, or percussive element. All of these factors will affect how you approach both the recording and mixing acoustic guitars. Context The first thing to do is think about its role…
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This article is provided by ChurchTechArts. A few weeks ago I came across an old post at another blog that described a trend, lousy church sound. You can read the post here. I’ll warn you, there are a lot of things going on in that post, and it may take you a few passes through to get a handle on what he’s saying. (I’ve read it five times and I’m still not 100 percent sure…) My intention is not…
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Article provided by Home Studio Corner. Beefy computer processors. Humongous track counts. More virtual instruments and plug-ins than anyone could possibly ever need. And, it’s all (relatively) inexpensive. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be a recording engineer now than 1981. There have been so many advances in technology, so many ways to get really great-sounding music. But is there a downside to all these options? Absolutely. Just because you can use 64 tracks on a song doesn’t mean…
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This article is provided by Commercial Integrator “Rock ‘n’ roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.”—attributed to Frank Sinatra (via INS news service). Dear Ol’ Blue Eyes may have had the advantage of good looks and a mellow voice, but his statement was both truth and a misunderstanding of the form. Rock was a break from the previous fanciful forms, speaking to gritty realities and desires. The origins of…
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This article is provided by Bobby Owsinski. If you’re recording a live performance, then you want to pick up some of the audience to make it sound realistic. Here are some techniques and considerations culled from the latest edition of the Recording Engineer’s Handbook. Audience recording is both the key and the problem with live recording. It’s sometimes difficult to record the audience in a way that captures its true sound. The transient peaks of the audience makes it…
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This article is provided by Behind The Mixer. Standing behind my front of house guy one morning, I watched how he listened to the music and made subtle mix changes. The truth is the little mix changes make a huge difference, and too often the novice sound person makes an initial EQ pass on the console and then stops. A little change can bring an instrument to the front of a mix. It can make a vocal pop out. It…
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This article is provided by ChurchTechArts. One of the cool things I get to do is travel around to a lot of churches and conferences each year. Most of the time, I’m just hanging out and talking to people, which I really enjoy. But when the session or service starts, I typically migrate towards front of house to see what’s going on. What I have observed is a somewhat disturbing trend. Now, this may make me sound like an…
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The drum sound is the heart of any band mix: kick drum keeps the pulse going, while the snare drives the rhythm and the overall beat gives each song its groove. Dynamic microphones are used for close miking drums because they’re sturdy, handle high SPL, provide off-axis rejection and often have a presence boost around 4 kHz that emphasizes attack. At the same time, digital consoles have changed the live sound workflow. Their instant recall forces drum sound check to…
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